At Night The Beasts Come Howling
by Aimlessly Unknown
Summary: There is a reason Sherlock Holmes doesn't sleep. Sherlock-centric.


Sherlock Holmes doesn't have dreams. That's a fact. Not that anyone would care to ask. Until John Watson comes, all tan and broken into precious pieces left in Afghanistan. He asks if Sherlock ever dreams, it's a passing inquiry, something that slips out after John recounts one of his nightmares. Sherlock tells him no, because Sherlock Holmes doesn't dream. Dreams are a waste of brain power and don't even have a valid scientific background, making them utterly useless.

No, Sherlock Holmes doesn't have dreams.

Nightmares, however, are another matter entirely.

/

When he's eight his father begins to wither; skin that becomes paper and eyes that are pressed so deeply into his sockets that it seems like they are hiding from the reality in front of him. That he is dying. Sherlock recalls his Mummy running back and forth, all around like a madwoman, with doctors and lawyers and anything that can help. His Mummy, that never raises her voice and does nothing but smile, starts to shriek and sob. Things that Mycroft shields him from; Mycroft tells him stories as his Mummy sobs in the room next to Sherlock, stories about children that find a witch after they are sent away from home. A gingerbread woman that tries to eat them, but the boy is smart and leaves breadcrumbs behind (even at that age Sherlock still believes it to be illogical, birds will eat it) but birds devour them (Mycroft rolls his eyes as his brother nods to himself, proud at his deduction).

At the end the father finds them and they live, just the three of them. And Mycroft tells Sherlock, "You see, three people can be a family. If something should happen to Father then we will still be together."

Sherlock tries to believe him.

But belief is not grounded in fact and science, belief is immeasurable and weak, crushed easily by the slightest hint of doubt. Sherlock tries not to believe in anything.

Even in Mycroft.

/

When he turns ten his father dies. That is the first night he has The Nightmare. It is the only nightmare he has ever had in his life and it will drive him to his insomniac ways. Avoiding sleep for more than a month before he collapses in exhaustion and sleeps for days on end – his body hungry for REM sleep, as all bodies are – no one tries to stop him and no one cares as long as he is still brilliant, baby Sherlock. He knows this now. It doesn't matter if you're healthy as long as you're brilliant.

He dreams that he is in a forest, that he is lost on a path, and there is nothing to guide him. He walks on unsteady ground and tries to find the end of the forest using logic. But logic fails him here. So he wanders endlessly through brambles and tree trunks so tall and imposing that they block out the light. He feels entirely alone here.

When he wakes up, sweaty and barely breathing – terrified and begging to return to a time when he wasn't plagued by this _monster_ – he wonders if this is how his father felt as he died.

/

Carl Powers was a good boy. Sherlock could tell from the way his hair was combed. Always to the side and parted evenly, the way a mother would comb it (Sherlock's own mother had given up long ago in an attempt to train his unruly mass of curls), and he never touched it. If he had done it himself he would have been fine with touching it, mussing it, because he could fix it. But Carl never did, so his mum must have done it. Sherlock thinks on this and doesn't know if it's stupid or simply a boy without a father (he's been trying to act more mature and attaching himself to Mr. Compton, perhaps to make up for a lack of a father figure) latching onto his mother.

The day Sherlock finds out that Carl is dead he sees his mother walking down the road. She looks like a ghost, void of life and meaning. It is then, in the wake of a mother's devastation, that Sherlock decides he will never care for anyone. Everyone dies, everything withers, and humans – so frail and weak – are far too unreliable.

/

His plan to Not Care doesn't quite pan out the way he thought it would. He falls in love when he's sixteen. Or, rather, in lust; it is with a boy named Daniel. He is a boy who is older than Sherlock, eighteen and in _university_, and as logical as Sherlock is. He tells Sherlock of biological processes and together they scoff at the world as it falls around them – falling in love, diving headlong into relationships that will never yield anything. Sherlock does muse, however, on the fact that his wayward biological desires interferes with his work. Perhaps it would not be so bad to be in a relationship as long as both parties are aware that it is a purely scientific reason.

But Daniel's voice is like music and he offers a plan to alleviate both of their problems. He crashes his lips onto Sherlock's and Sherlock is far too busy cataloguing the feel of someone's wet lips on his to try and feel anything. But Sherlock responds because Sherlock will always respond to anything – he always gets the last word and this will be no different. Except it is. And Daniel is forceful, too busy trying to get himself off to care about the young boy beneath him wondering if this is supposed to feel this way. Like he's being used and ripped apart as if he is a rag doll.

Once it is over and Sherlock is sore from his head to his toes Daniel picks up his things and leaves.

He calls behind him; "Thanks for being so rational about this."

Sherlock stares after him and thinks, '_If this is love, then I don't want it_.'

As he collects his things he wonders if Daniel hit him at one point, because his chest is starting to hurt and he has no idea why.

/

Mrs. Hudson is a gentle woman, wrinkles and laugh lines. But she is also invasive, intrudes on his life, and treats him like a son. Not that he needs a mother, his has been adequately provided for with his own. But that does not stop her. She makes biscuits and causes a fuss and tells him he needs company.

Demands, weeks later, that he needs a roommate or she will evict him. Not that she will – he knows that well enough, but still he obeys. He talks to an old acquaintance of his and briefly mentions that he does not think there will be a single person that desires to room with him.

Not that he wants to, 221b is lovely when it is _alone_, and part of him (he names it Mrs. Hudson and it is a whimsical part of him that he associates with grandmother's he never visited) calls it _home_.

/

He is twenty three when he becomes a Consulting Detective. He meets Lestrade and immediately knows that Lestrade's wife is going to divorce him. He is clearly gay and his wife has been aware of it for months if his cufflinks are anything to go by. But Lestrade is a kind man with laugh lines around his mouth and Sherlock feels the odd desire to preserve those. Probably because he is aware that Lestrade will be invaluable in his investigations – in preventing Sherlock from getting into real trouble with the law. It is always nice to have someone on your side, even if it is for no other purpose but using you.

(years later a small part of him will wish to solve cases for the justice of families that he has seen ripped apart; it is a small part of him, a piece that is negligible and proves useless in his hunt for facts and science, but he calls it _Lestrade_ and there is nothing he hates more than to acknowledge it)

The first time he meets Sally Donovan, she is smiling. She offers her hand and calls him '_Sherlock_'. It is one of the few memories of Sally that does not make his teeth grind. He shakes her hand once, firmly, and asks her how long she intends to remain in the police force when her mother clearly wants her to quit. At first, she is enraged but awed by his prowess, and shows him only the interest in his abilities – even if underneath he can sense boiling rage. Then he realizes she is a poor detective, unaware of anything but the obvious and that irritates him. He tells her such. And her face is a mixture of shock and awe and anger.

He will see that look often enough as they grow closer. But she is still cordial to him. She still treats him with respect, not because he demands it, but because she truly respects him. Until he notices her and Anderson sneaking away on breaks; then, upon his bringing it up in conversation, unaware of the societal niceties observed by _normal_ people, there is a shift. She hates him now.

She does not call him _Sherlock_ after that.

Since then, he is always _Freak_.

He may prefer it that way.

People are unreliable, and Sally Donovan began a disappointment and will end the same way.

/

John Watson is an enigma.

He is strong mentally and physically but he is a slave to his emotions. He is quick to anger and quicker to love. He delves into the humanity of things and digs himself a lovely little hole where he can cocoon himself in people. He gets _involved _where Sherlock distances himself. And part of Sherlock _hates _that. Hates it, hates it, hates it. Now John is involved and where John involves himself Sherlock gets dragged along.

Yes, the cases are interesting (not nearly enough for the Internet, though, and John can be such a dull storyteller – all character and no mystery), but something else draws him into the mysteries. Something he thinks would have light brown eyes and misleading scars.

He calls this the _John _in him. And though he loathes admitting that it exists, there is no denying it (to deny it would be like denying light and shadows, gravity and faith). Two winters pass – brutal and bitter like every other in London – before Sherlock has the nightmare again.

Again he is trapped in the forest, still a child – impossibly young, how is he supposed to find his way out? – and there is no one there. Nothing there; he is alone. Always alone, just as he was in his youth (ostracized and left to be, as if that would soothe the wound that being practically brutalized that he suffered).

The nightmare fills the cracks in him – the ones that patches and biscuits cannot reach – but these are not plasters. These fill and stretch and tear and suddenly he is full of them. Full of cracks and rips and tears; sometimes it hurts so much that he feels he will bleed to death with it.

But he is Sherlock Holmes and there is no time for this while he is working, so he levels patches over the cracks until not even he can see past his addiction.

/

John kisses Sherlock on a warm May morning.

They are huddled together, tying the ends of cases together, and giggling over crime scenes when it happens. John is talking about the lividity of one of the bodies when suddenly he stops. Sherlock is analysing the remnants of the ash that was left at one of the crime scenes when he notices the lack of John's voice. He turns his head to face his blogger. John is staring at him, dumbstruck.

"Is something wrong, John?" He inquires. John is flush and red, perhaps he is sick. After all, they did spend a good few hours huddled in the river beyond Kent to catch the Greenside Killer. How dull, if John is sick then Sherlock will have to wait for him to get better. Trivial.

Suddenly Sherlock has a face full of John. Their lips are awkwardly mashed together and John's hands can't find a comfortable position on Sherlock's chest – so he settles for bunching up Sherlock's collar.

They kiss for 1.5 minutes, during none of which Sherlock responded. There is an awkward pause when John steps back, staring at Sherlock warmly. He doesn't say anything else, doesn't try and explain or coerce Sherlock, instead he goes on about the bodies and acts as though nothing happened.

Sherlock turns back to the photos and doesn't think on it.

(but he doesn't delete it either)

/

Sherlock can catalogue the exact day he fell in love with John Watson.

The day he moved from lust—

(the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating and stimulates the release of hormones such as testosterone and oestrogen; effect only lasts for weeks or months) – wanting to press him violently against the glass and find out why John is so addictive, trace the scars that lie beneath the skin)

—to attraction—

(including dopamine, phenylethylamine, norepinephrine and serotonin; similar to stress: increased heart rate, sweaty palms, heavy breathing and etc.)

to wanting to hold John's hand and keep him by Sherlock's side forever.

He knows that moment like he knows his own mind – it is borne out of trust and camaraderie and jumpers. There's a power in loving John. A power that he hadn't known before; one that propels him forward, like he's been shot out of a cannon, towards a future that he hadn't thought existed.

(That he hadn't dared dream existed)

But it debilitates as well. It takes Sherlock and twists him into a tortured thing; breaks his resolve and shirks his inclination towards danger, like a poor jacket on a winter day. He calculates the percentage of John getting hurt and changes direction instinctively. And if a stray cop gets injured, it doesn't matter. Because John is here, safe – and what does anything else matter if John is safe?

(inside, the part of him that Mycroft shaped and coaxed and formed whispers _Sherlock, you're being petty_. but, like Mycroft, Sherlock ignores it.)

Sherlock hates his love for John. Hates it as much as he adores it; wants to strangle it as much as he wants to hold it.

It feels as though he is on the lip of a gorge, begging to fall.

/

He denies it. For several months – despite knowing it, feeling it beneath his flesh – he denies its existence. He becomes human and ignores that which he does not understand. Love doesn't exist, he tells himself. It is an illusion of the brain, of the heart.

(love is fake. people are disappointments. they are always disappointments.)

He plans to leave. To get away and to ignore it until it just _goes away_, like every(one) thing that ever mattered to anyone. Because that is what things do, they fade away. They go away, like dust through the fingertips.

John – the John he knows – was carved out of the desert. Surely he would know the feeling.

/

Moriarty is a threat to John. A threat to Sherlock, too; but Moriarty likes Sherlock, thinks of him as a playmate in this game of death. But John is an obstacle because Sherlock will never abandon John to go chasing Moriarty, alone. Which is how Jim wants him, alone and vulnerable. But John will follow, and that will put John in danger.

(Unacceptable, a voice growls; a voice that is purely Sherlock)

Therefore Sherlock hatches a plan. Devises his own game of chase and capture for Moriarty to play; the player has become the gamemaster he thinks. It all comes to a culmination on St. Bart's. Moriarty does exactly as Sherlock predicts and then, _then_, it all falls into place.

The drug is only set to last three hours, but Molly is standing by and there is no way this will fail. Simply no way. So he rises to the edge of St. Bart's and makes sure John can see him. Then he recites his lines, the ones he wrote, and somehow feeling slips its sneaky way in (there is a part of his chest that grows warm at the thought of John, warm and then cold at the pain he is inflicting – and Sherlock isn't entirely sure which part of him has caused it).

'_Be safe,_' He thinks, as he tips over the edge. The ground comes closer, faster, faster, faster. The drug slides its way through his bloodstream and he feels his body go limp under its effects. Just before Sherlock crashes into the pavement in front of St. Bart's, head first, his final thought is, '_Safe_.'

Because now, with his sacrifice, John is safe; finally, truly, always safe – and no danger will haunt him while Sherlock is gone.

And Sherlock intends to stay gone. Until, at least, Moriarty is gone.

(every part of him calls john _home_ and, even before he leaves, all of them ache to stay)

Then it all goes black.

/

Between Sherlock falling unconscious and waking up alone in St. Bart's with only the outline of Molly at the doorway to prove that he is still alive, he dreams.

He dreams that he is in a forest and the forest is so large that he cannot find his way out. There is nothing around him, no light and no sound; he is all alone. This has been his life, has always been his life. Alone and cold in a dark, forbidden place; no one is there. There is no end to his loneliness.

Except this time it is different. A monster is behind him – teeth bared and eyes glowing hazy red. It is chasing him, hunting him down and ready to sink its claws into his flesh. It wants to rip him apart and take him away and stop! Stop! Go away!

He breaks into a run, but he isn't moving. He's running in place – towards nothing and behind him is only death. The monster runs faster, faster – catching up to him. He turns in horror – eyes wide and pale as the glass of the bottle usually is before it breaks – as the monster descends.

And devours him alive.

/

He returns in three years. Breathes again after all that hunting (the part of him that is as cruel as Moriarty relished it) and now he is searching. Searching for a man with an old limp and a new scar torn across his heart ("The one your early claws caused," Lestrade whispers in the back of his mind) that is still here – whom hasn't given up yet. He wanders into the surgery – but no one is there, no one he cares for. He goes home, but there is only an echo.

Mrs. Hudson is – predictably – faints upon seeing him. After a tearful reunion (only on Mrs. Hudson's part, but even the Sherlockiest Sherlock part of him can't deny the happiness that explodes from him like C4) she tells him that John usually gets home in a couple of hours. Begs him to wait, implores him never to leave again.

So he wanders up. Lies down on the couch to wait; he is so tired. Tired of running and hunting when all he wants is to lie down and relax. Drink tea and giggle at crime scenes. He wants to laugh at Anderson and hate Donovan and antagonize Lestrade. He wants to mock Mycroft and mock John's blog.

(He will wait years, as long as John did, for John. For home and hope and the things he wants so badly that the little boy, locked inside, still aches sometimes)

Slowly, he drifts off.

It is the forest again. When will it end? He wanders. He wanders endlessly through. Darkness and despair all over, bleeding into him.

Then, below the underbrush, there is a whisper. "_Sherlock_,"

The voice is warm and inviting. It whispers again. "_Sherlock_,"

Over and over again, "_Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock_,"

He is running. Running towards the voice, following its cadence and lilt; he will find this voice and memorize its mnemonics, he will know it inside and out. If the voice wanes away the nightmares then Sherlock will own the voice and it will be his pet and he will be _safe_.

Suddenly there is a burst of light. A bright shining light that sprouts from all the trees and all the spaces and even from inside Sherlock, burning out the addiction – cauterizing the wounds. He stares ahead, searching. But all he can see is light and all he can feel is warmth.

Sherlock comes too. John's face stares down at him, smiling tearfully.

"Welcome home," The doctor's voice is slow and sweet, welcoming.

(Sherlock Holmes doesn't dream. Sherlock Holmes has nightmares.

Unless he's with John.)


End file.
